Coalition welcomes move on odometer fraud

A coalition of seven organisations have welcomed a vote in the European Parliament calling on the European Commission to take decisive action against odometer fraud throughout the European Union. This is a significant step towards restoring consumer trust in the used car market, according to the coalition.

In 2014, the coalition came together to call upon the European Parliament and the European Commission to address this all too common scam which is impacting millions of people. The European Parliament has now sent a clear signal that it takes citizens’ interests seriously.

The Parliament is calling for a range of measures to tackle odometer manipulation both for new vehicles put on the market and for those already on the road. The report highlights both technical measures to prevent odometer fraud and reporting requirements on odometer readings for Member States.

Odometer fraud is widespread across the European Union and has major consequences for the consumer. Also known as “clocking”, it is the practice of rolling back a car’s mileage counter to show a false reading, lower than the car’s actual mileage, in order to boost the sales price.

The European Parliament, in a 2017 study, found that up to 40 per cent of used cars traded across borders are “clocked” and that citizens EU-wide incur a loss of €8.9 billion per year, under conservative assumptions and without taking account of the consumer damage from manipulated vehicles sold in within a same country.

Besides inflated costs for the consumer, odometer tampering has adverse consequence on road safety, the environment and substantially distorts the functioning of the used car market in the EU.

The large cross-party majority that supported the report is an important show of European determination to end odometer tampering across all 28 Member States and we would like to take this opportunity to thank MEP Ismail Ertug and all those involved in the file for their tireless efforts and determination to protect the European consumer.